False Pretences
by cutupyrpillow
Summary: Howard thinks he's found his soulmate in a Scrabble chatroom - Vince, however, has other ideas. Self-harm !


**hey! so this is basically the first fanfic i have ever written in my whole life... i'd really appreciate some constructive criticism 'cause i know there's a lot i can improve on! haha. my b.f.f. Joan (jazzhands815) basically _made _me put this up (it's why i have an account here haha), so this is dedicated to her. it's based on some events that actually happened to me, although obviously i've changed them quite drastically to fit the Boosh universe (Booshiverse? haha)... writing this was kind of like my therapy, haha. go read Joan's version of this instead, it's much better and less depressing! okay, hope you like it x  
**

* * *

Howard was incredibly irritated. This was just about the worst time for Vince to show up on AIM and start sending him pointless little messages. For once, though, Howard didn't wish that Vince would just come into his room and just talk to him properly...

He closed down the other window just in case, already beginning to count the seconds until he could bring it back up again, even as he watched it zoom down onto the taskbar. Waiting for his return.

Okay, what did the little dickhead want this time?

**~*#gLAmRoCkSTaR#*~**: oi howard stop fukin cyberin and let me sho u sumthin

**man_of_action**: i don't cyber

**~*#gLAmRoCkSTaR#*~**: haha yea w/e

**man_of_action**: what did you want to show me

**~*#gLAmRoCkSTaR#*~**: i made an acount on tht scrabble site ur always on

**~*#gLAmRoCkSTaR#*~**: corduroy_boy

**man_of_action**: what?

**man_of_action**: oh my god fuck you you fucking prick

**~*#gLAmRoCkSTaR#*~**: _**JazzMaverick**: i slide two fingers into your tight, silky entrance_

**man_of_action**: YOU ARE A LITTLE FUCKING BITCH YOU KNOW THAT?

**man_of_action**: I FUCKING HATE YOU

**~*#gLAmRoCkSTaR#*~**: _**JazzMaverick**: i've never done this before, am i doing it right?_

**man_of_action**: FUCK OFF YOU FUCKING DICKHEAD

**~*#gLAmRoCkSTaR#*~**: hahahahahahaaaa

Howard pulled the computer's plug straight out of the socket, not even able to endure the two seconds of time it would have taken him to hold down the 'off' button. He briefly worried about whether Colin would be worried at his sudden disappearance, before remembering just what had happened to him. Colin wouldn't care, because Colin wasn't real.

Colin; the person he'd built up in his mind to fit behind the name of Colin, behind the screenname corduroy_boy, behind the sparse - he now recalled just how suspiciously sparse - profile page that listed both John Coltrane and Gogol as interests... had in fact just been a figment of his imagination. No! Not even his own imagination! Vince's! Vince's sick, twisted mind, thinking it would be funny to lead him on like that, get him to admit to his most secret desires so that he could laugh at Howard even more than he already did in real life; and not only that, but to then let him _know_ that he'd been being mocked the whole time, that his perversions had been broadcast to Lord knew who... most of all that the person he'd come over the recent hours to think of as a friend, a confidante - a lover - had just been laughing at him behind his back the whole time he'd been pouring out his heart and soul.

Betrayal. That was what he felt. Betrayal, going deeper than he'd ever felt it before - Vince had screwed him over too many times to keep track, but never like this; never so deeply, so maliciously... did he just not care about Howard's feelings at all? Vince'd always been self-obsessed to the point of ignoring everybody else around him, but Howard had always thought himself to be one of the very few exceptions to the rule. Now Vince had proved that to be untrue - and in the worst possible way. Thinking about what he'd just been doing with Colin - with Vince! Not even _with_ Vince - in _front_ of him, performing for him like a dog, led on by his words - it made him sick...

_**corduroy_boy**: well if you were going to kiss me_

_**corduroy_boy**: how do you know i wouldn't kiss you back? ;)_

_**JazzMaverick**: well_

_**corduroy_boy**: i'm moving closer to you_

_**corduroy_boy**: your musky scent is getting stronger and stronger_

_**JazzMaverick**: my what?_

_**corduroy_boy**: well that's how i imagine you'd smell_

_**corduroy_boy**: i feel cold howard, maybe you should put your arms around me_

_**JazzMaverick**: okay_

_**corduroy_boy**: well do it then_

_**JazzMaverick**: i'm putting my arms around your shoulders_

_**corduroy_boy**: my waist_

_**JazzMaverick**: alright, your waist then_

_**corduroy_boy**: mmm_

_**corduroy_boy**: you're so big and manly and warm_

No. Not real. He couldn't think properly any more - the air seemed to be growing colder and colder around him, pressing in on him, crushing him. Freezing... he was freezing up inside. Every thought he had brought him back to what had just happened which filled him with an unbearable pain so he tried to stop thinking but he couldn't he just couldn't, how can a person stop thinking anyway? He didn't know. He didnt know anything any more. His heart felt as though it had been flooded with chilled water. He staggered down the corridor from his bedroom into the bathroom, collapsed in front of the toilet and vomited, his body mistaking the content of his stomach for the trauma within his mind, attempting to expel the pain any way it could. Colder and colder... the air was turning into ice and it hurt to breathe...

_**JazzMaverick**: your breath is tickling my neck_

_**corduroy_boy**: hehe_

_**corduroy_boy**: i'll tilt my head back a bit yeah?_

_**JazzMaverick**: okay_

_**corduroy_boy**: okay._

_**JazzMaverick**: you've got really beautiful eyes, i've never seen them up-close before_

_**corduroy_boy**: i think you should kiss me howard._

_**JazzMaverick**: well alright_

_**corduroy_boy**: are you going to or not?_

_**JazzMaverick**: okay i move my face down to yours and kiss you._

_**corduroy_boy**: i'm kissing you back, your moustache feels so good against my top lip_

_**JazzMaverick**: your lips feel like satin_

_**corduroy_boy**: you should use your tongue. i'm running the end of my tongue along your lips._

_**JazzMaverick**: i push my tongue into your mouth_

_**corduroy_boy**: oh god that feels amazing. i'm moving my tongue slowly against yours_

_**JazzMaverick**: i'm running my hands through your hair. it feels like spun gold_

Everything was falling apart in the freezing darkness. Howard couldn't feel the tips of his fingers. The floor was threatening to collapse from underneath him and the ice in his lungs was choking him. The one person whom he had finally trusted enough to divulge his secrets to had turned out to be just another cruel trick in Vince's repertoire. Just another way to make fun of him. Useless, useless Howard. The awkward gangly Northern berk. Even on the internet he can't find a single person who likes him.

Howard tried to fend off the icy coldness he felt all over his body with Chinese burns, but his skin had gone too numb for the friction to bring back even a little bit of feeling. He needed something to stop him from freezing entirely, and he needed it fast. Locking the bathroom door, he began a frantic search for something that would cause more pain than just his big, stupid hands. Bleach - no. Nail varnish remover - he didn't have any cuts. Exfoliating gloves - too small for his hands. Nail scissors - blunted, to stop Vince accidentally hurting himself with them. Vince. How dare he do this. How _dare_ he.

The ice inside him shattered into jagged shards, slicing through his lungs and heart, as rage overtook Howard's feelings of humiliation and despair. He wanted to kill something, to find Vince and squeeze his stupid, beautiful head until his eyeballs burst and the skin sheared away from his skull. He caught sight of his own ugly, ridiculous head in the bathroom mirror, and the sight made him so enraged that he lashed out with a big fist and smashed it.

How dare this universe give so much to Vince and so little to Howard... and still Vince didn't even realise just how much he had, how much he could hurt Howard by doing something like this... The numbness he felt in his body was so strong now that Howard felt as though if he didn't do something about it, he would explode in a shower of ice crystals - he had to do something. Grabbing at the nearest shard of broken mirror, Howard pressed it down against his forearm and began to drag it along his skin - it hurt, but at least he could feel it, it wasn't icy coldness, it wasn't the pain of being fooled into letting his guard down. He did it again. And again. And again...

He could vaguely hear the sounds of several pairs of feet stomping up the stairs outside the door. They'd probably want to be in the bathroom in a little bit. Howard tried to reach up to unlock the door again, but found that he no longer had the strength. The floor was flooded with his own blood, soaking through his own shirt where his arm had fallen across his chest, the piece of mirror still clutched in his bloodied hand. What a mess he'd made of himself. His vision was beginning to blur now. Everything around him was starting to get fuzzy around the edges...

_**JazzMaverick**: i've never felt this way about anyone else before colin_

_**corduroy_boy**: really?_

_**JazzMaverick**: well maybe once before but it wasn't real_

Nothing he'd ever had with anyone, ever, in his whole entire life, had ever been real, had it? No. His supposed best friend, Vince, the person he'd thought he'd loved for so long, saw him as nothing but a source of puerile amusement, not a person. The one person to ever return his feelings of love had in fact just been that same best friend all along, laughing at his feelings as though he, Howard, were not allowed to have them... The world was going dark now. He could hear someone thumping on the bathroom door, and shouting from outside, but the noises sounded far away and dreamlike. Part of a world he was leaving. The darkness grew deeper and deeper as he drifted into oblivion... nothing but blackness now. Finally free...

* * *

Beep, beep, beep.

The sound punctuated the blackness, over and over again, insistently drawing Howard back into the real world. He didn't want to leave. He liked this world of nothingness, away from humiliation and regret and best friends that continually made you feel things like that. He didn't want to be alive any more. But the beeping continued, and eventually he got sick of the sound and opened his eyes to see if there was anything he could look at to take his mind off it.

Leaping straight into his vision the second he raised his eyelids were a pair of big, blue eyes looking straight into his own. Vince. Sitting in the little chair by the hospital bed Howard now realised himself to be in, leaning right down into Howard's face, almost as though he were searching for something.

"Howard! You're awake! I never thought you'd..." Vince's voice trailed off.

Howard tried to speak, tried to tell Vince just how much he hated having been brought back into the world, and hated the fact that Vince had been the one to drive him out of it in the first place even more, but he couldn't seem to find the strength. He began to whisper what he had to say, but Vince started talking again at exactly the same time, drowning him out. Like always.

"You know, you're dead lucky to be alive; if Bollo hadn't really needed to take a piss right then I don't think we'd have found you 'til the next morning," he began, then, seemingly catching the look in Howard's eye, stopped speaking again. Not for long, though.

"Why did you do that, Howard? I mean, with the mirror? Was it... I mean, that was just a _joke_, Howard, I mean yeah it was a bit mean, but honestly Howard we thought you'd _laugh_..."

_No you didn't, Vince, _Howard desperately wanted to shout back, _you wanted to make me cry, you wanted to upset me, there's no way that's just a harmless prank, is it... _

But then Vince started crying and Howard instantly forgot all his vitriol.

"I... I didn't think... well, I did think, I thought maybe that it was... but then Leroy wouldn't stop talking about doing it, and you know how I get, Howard, remember when I got jazz AIDS, and you had to cure me? People just talk me into stuff, and then I... I don't think about it because... I'm sorry, Howard," Vince managed to force out inbetween sobs. Howard wanted to reach up and put his arms around Vince, but yet again his strength failed him, had flowed away with all the blood. There was a drip of it going into his arm; hopefully in a few hours time he'd be able to do and say all that he wanted to right now.

Vince had slipped out of the chair, and now lay himself down very carefully and nestled his head next to Howard's.

"You forgive me, yeah?"

His breath was tickling Howard's neck.


End file.
